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Christian Aid in Ethiopia

Christian Aid has worked in Ethiopia for more than 30 years, initially responding to emergencies, but gradually building long-term development programmes.

Ethiopia has one of the world’s fastest-growing populations and is the second most populous country in Africa.

While the country is experiencing high levels of economic growth, Ethiopia continues to face major challenges including food insecurity, cyclical disasters, population pressure, unemployment, disease and natural resource degradation.

Christian Aid Ethiopia has substantial experience and a strong reputation for working on resilience and secure livelihoods in remote locations, particularly with pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. We work in areas underserved by other development organisations.

We work with local partners to deliver programmes that bring about lasting change for vulnerable and marginalised people.

We want our work to result in thriving, resilient and equitable communities where people, their assets and their livelihoods are resilient, and where previously disadvantaged individuals and communities feel increasingly able to influence decisions affecting their lives.

Our aims

Support communities to be more resilient so they can anticipate, organise and adapt to changes;

Enhance the protection of lives, livelihoods and assets during disasters;

Increase accountability of NGOs and civil society organisations to communities with whom they work;

Promote social norms that create and reinforce gender equality;

Increase access to health services to remote and marginalised communities;

As a group we have learned the benefits of saving. All of our members now know how to take out a loan and engage in business

’

Amerella Bosh Maya, self-help group a member

In Ethiopia we work on…

Resilient livelihoods

We are working to increase wealth creation opportunities and build livelihood resilience for poor and marginalised people, particularly pastoral and agro-pastoral communities.

There is an urgent need to improve protection, diversification and productivity of their livelihood strategies in a radical way and to support them to be more resilient to future risks and hazards.

To do this we promote agricultural and non-agricultural livelihood support work, including innovation and technology, energy and animal health, plus technical training in agronomy, maintenance, artisanship and entrepreneurship.

We also help to build producer and community institutions including self-help groups, savings/credit/loan associations and cooperatives – and offer training in literacy, numeracy and leadership.

Inclusive markets

We work on market development for poor and socially marginalised people to diversify income sources, develop alternative employment opportunities and expand access to financial services and markets.

Gender and inequality

We work to improve the ability of under-served groups and people living in poverty, especially women and girls, to make and achieve self-determined choices.

Good governance and challenging social norms

Our aim is to educate communities to make and achieve self-determined choices, especially women and girls.

We want to increase the accountability of NGOs and engage religious and community leaders, and other key power-holders, to tackle the stigma, denial and discrimination associated with HIV.

We support Ethiopian institutions and civil society representatives to call for, and deliver, climate justice and associated adaptation measures.

Health

We work to improve health and support increased access to services essential for better health.

Our aim is to strengthen service delivery, workforce, information systems and infrastructure in remote or marginalised areas and for mobile pastoral communities.

Waterborne diseases and unsafe sanitation is one area we are working to decrease by improving water supply, sanitation and hygiene.

We also work to raise community awareness and encourage behaviour change on health-related issues.

Humanitarian

We shall maintain our core value of responding to humanitarian emergencies and working on community recovery.

We will give due emphasis on playing a key role to influence the government policies and actions to improve early warning and early action system.

Munge Gile is a pastoralist from the Hamer community in South Omo. He learnt how to improve grazing by enclosing 10 hectares of land. He grows new strains of grass seeds and harvests the grass for fodder and roofing.

Where we work and who we work with

We work in key areas, where there is greater need, the communities are underserved and where we have built strong relationships with partners, communities and local authorities.

Currently, we operate in four regions; Oromia, SNNPR, Gambella and Beneshangul Gumuz.

We have a good reputation for community-based interventions that are effective, sustainable and participatory.

This includes our strong competence in, and commitment to using, participatory vulnerability and capacity assessments (PVCAs) in our development and emergency work.

Our grassroots work and field-level experience gives us credibility in our contributions to the policy making process and on the impact of climate change on indigenous pastoral and agro-pastoral communities.

Our country office is based in the capital city, Addis Ababa, and we are setting up filed offices in Konso and Borena.

Alchi Algone water supply in Hamer Woreda uses solar-powered pumps to provide water for families in four villages in Ethiopia.

Key achievements

Climate Information and Assets for Resilience (BRACED)

The BRACED programme has brought about major results through its climate knowledge exchange mechanism, establishment of community organisations, small business development, climate smart and business farming, watershed management, rainwater harvesting, irrigation, sustainable energy technology promotion and strengthening of the local DRR/EW system.

The climate information service package has made an immense contribution towards systemic change for weather information generation, customisation, dissemination.

It has changed attitudes and increased the knowledge of communities who are using the information for livelihood decision making.

In addition, weather information exchange mechanisms has been linked to the local government DRR/EW system for sustainability.

Preparedness and Early Response to Public Health Emergencies in Gambella Region of Ethiopia (DEPP)

This programme has played a critical role in strengthening early warning, disease surveillance, preparedness and rapid response systems in the region.

The project has provided capacity building to 730 health professionals and other community volunteers and installed automated weather stations.

This programme established baseline line data for multi-hazard, multi-sectoral, context specific early warning - early action.

Automated weather stations were installed through the project, which enhanced the National Metrology Agency’s capacity to generate high resolution, down-scaled and localised weather forecasts.

An ICT system was also established to support decision making processes, which determine appropriate early actions to be initiated at community, district and regional levels.

All of these initiatives influenced the Federal Disaster Risk Management Commission to adopt the products of improved early warning - early action systems for further scaling up.

‘

The project has definitely brought a bigger impact on the overall health emergency preparedness and response in the region

’

Zewudu Asefa, national PHEM officer

Band Aid School Feeding Programme II for Zuway Dugda Woreda

Phase I of the Band Aid Trust supported a school feeding programme, which provided nutritious meals for over 5000 children in the Zuway Dugda Woreda of Oromia Region. The first phase ended on 31 March, 2017.

This support has been very critical in preventing malnutrition and school drop-out rates among school children.

Currently, Phase II of the school feeding programme is providing a daily nutritious meal in nine schools in the Zuway Dugda district and targets a total of 6000 school children.

Access, Service and Utilisation of Reproductive Health (ASURE-Health)

Interventions related to increasing awareness and demand for reproductive health services, have resulted in multidimensional positive changes in the targeted community.

The programme strengthened self-help groups for women with member with 200 self-help groups involving 3698 women now established.

The regular community conversations and family dialogue sessions among the members and families of the self-help groups were instrumental in creating improved access and exchange of information on health, socio-economic, cultural issues.

In turn, there was improved awareness on health and related development issues within the community.

Women's health and decision-making capabilities, particularly on reproductive health choices, has also improved.

A total of 1470 self-help group members have started using family planning services and contraceptive use has increased by 17%. Teenage pregnancy has also reduced by 7% in the target community.

To achieve this, a total of 155 (98.2%) health professionals have been trained and around 206 health facilities have been supplied with contraceptive commodities and other associated medical supplies.

A women's self-help group in Borena helps teach members to read and write.

Contact us

Christian Aid Ethiopia is based in Addis Ababa. We also draw on the expertise of colleagues from other Christian Aid teams across Africa and the world, staff at Christian Aid’s UK headquarters, and INGO networks in Ethiopia and beyond.

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About Christian Aid

We have more than 70 years’ experience of working in partnership to support communities to thrive. We tackle the root causes of poverty so that women, men and children the world over are strengthened against future knocks. And if disasters happen, we get people the help they want straight away.